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Need help on Swain

I just got Swain today and I did pretty well on both games. But, I found myself running out of mana even in the end of the games. Other than getting blue buff, which items should I get to avoid this problem?

Getting Catalyst the Protector after your first return to base is key to Swain's mana issues during the laning phase. Obviously, you wanna build this into Rod of Ages, but I generally get Sorc Shoes or Merc Treads on my second buy back depending on what my opponent is or is building. Swain scales magnificently with AP in my opinion so rushing Rabadons isn't a necessity. I personally like to go for Athene's Unholy Grail to ultimately solve most of my mana issues. However, there really isn't any way to get around Swain's mana hungry ultimate other than properly toggling it on and off. Blue buff is still important for you late game.

Part of it is learning to manage Ravenous Flock, figuring out when to activate it, when you can afford to deactivate it in a fight to reset the mana cost, etc.

Item-wise, Chalice of Harmony is the best mana-regen item available. Eventually you can upgrade it to Athene's Unholy Grail, which also gives you burst mana regen for scoring kills or assists in teamfights. Even with Chalice/Grail, though, you still want Blue Buff as often as possible. In fact, Blue Buff makes Chalice/Grail's passive even stronger.

Also, practicing last-hitting with him so you can get the maximum benefit from his passive.

On an unrelated note, rushing Deathcap after RoA isn't always a good idea. It's safer to build Abyssal Scepter and/or Zhonya's Hourglass first since Swain needs to be tanky to survive in close range. However, if you're doing well and getting lots of kills, a fast Deathcap can help you snowball even harder.

Part of it is learning to manage Ravenous Flock, figuring out when to activate it, when you can afford to deactivate it in a fight to reset the mana cost, etc.

Item-wise, Chalice of Harmony is the best mana-regen item available. Eventually you can upgrade it to Athene's Unholy Grail, which also gives you burst mana regen for scoring kills or assists in teamfights. Even with Chalice/Grail, though, you still want Blue Buff as often as possible. In fact, Blue Buff makes Chalice/Grail's passive even stronger.

Also, practicing last-hitting with him so you can get the maximum benefit from his passive.

On an unrelated note, rushing Deathcap after RoA isn't always a good idea. It's safer to build Abyssal Scepter and/or Zhonya's Hourglass first since Swain needs to be tanky to survive in close range. However, if you're doing well and getting lots of kills, a fast Deathcap can help you snowball even harder.

Yes this is the best advice for playing as Swain, Swain's only real counters in the entire game is Fizz and Kat for laning to mid game and Malz before level 6. Swain snowballs hard, especially since they buffed his ultimate a few months ago. I usually go by this build myself as Swain, I usually rush a Rod of Ages first by level 9 to 11 so he has some tankyness and a continued mana pool to feed his hungry ultimate. I then build into a Zhonya's Hourglass plus a Tear of the Goddess since both those items loop stack onto each other resulting in you regenerating mana while having your ultimate active which keeps it up for much longer, but only build into this if you are snowballing and your team is decisively winning the match, then build a Archangel's Staff last after all other items. If you are not, go the Zhonya's Hourglass then build straight into a Athene's Unholy Grail. If you are having problems maintaining mana during the laning phase against casters or direct damage opponents, stacking a couple of Doran's Rings by level 6 is very handy, plus make sure you get blue buff as often as you can, if not your own, steal the enemy blue if they are playing badly.

In fact Swain is so dependent on blue buff to wreck, you should invest in going into Runic Affinity and Meditation on the utility tree. Also Swain doesn't have any native dodge capacity from abilities and benefits from a lot of strong crowd control so to make up for this you should give him Swiftness also to make it easier for you to survive any counters and skill shots so that when they burn their CDs you can then swiftly kill them.

Swain also is one of the strongest Damage Over Time Champions in the game next to Darius, Teemo, Morgana and Malz. So getting Ignite is almost a prerequisite to playing him as it stacks with his Torment, with that said before level 6 Torment is your bread and butter damage and after level 6 it is your finisher to kill anyone who flees from team fights. Cast Ignite on someone then Torment when you have two Doran's Rings or a Blasting Wand (which should be your first items next to boots) and you'll find you will do as much Damage over time in a short period to finish almost anyone off who you targeted who only had 20% health left or less, so yes Swain can do as much damage as an AP Teemo before level 6, this is why people think he is OP. Not because of his ultimate. I've had a few games where people raged about me doing that to them and this is coming from a player who is sub-par, I don't consider myself good at the game at all. Swain being OP has won me a few matches which skill alone meant nothing compared to his damage output.

Also you shouldn't rush an early Meki Pendant, Swain is a top or a mid champion and gets his mana from minion kills before level 9, after that you will be focusing more on helping team mates and getting kills and forcing lane clears at which point you will be relying on mana regen items. And as said before, in Dominion you need a Prospector's Ring, as you can't rely on minions to replenish mana.

I've played hundreds of games on Swain and the only mana item I get is RoA. Athene's is nice and I might get it last but if you manage your mana properly and get in your last hits on minions you will do fine on mana.

If you're relatively new to the game and aren't getting great CS you will have mana problems in which case I agree that chalice is a good item. But that's about 5 extra minutes that you're not running the timer on RoA and 5 minutes of not building for damage. The trick with Swain is to build him tanky so you can get in closer than you can with my AP champs, do your combo and stay relatively close to them while they run away. Building Athene's slows you to that objective by 3000 gold. Rylai's and WotA are going to give you the survivability you need.

Just master the use of R. You should be using it for very short periods of time unless you know it will land a kill by keeping it on.

Just make sure you are comfortable getting cs with him. csing is pretty difficult to do with him in the beginning. Check out the Swain guide and see if it helps! if you are just starting swain this hopefully can help u. its just 10 min.